Low OG

[TRitter449]

I am brewing a stout with 2lbs flaked barley 7lbs pale malt 4lbs chocolate malt 1.5lbs caramel 60 1.5lbs black malt. Mashing in @ 155 with 3 gallons sparging with another 2. After collecting the wort I have about 4 gallons after the boil I have a little less than 3. I added water to get my 5 gallons but when I took the gravity reading it is only 1.000. What am I doing wrong?

 

[HopLife]

How did you crush the malt? How long did you let the mash sit @ 155. And you can probably do another round of sparging with about 2 more gallons to prevent coming up short on volume. The only other reason for no conversion would be that the malt had no enzymes available which should have come from the pale malt.

 

[zachattack]

If your hydrometer is working right, my guess is you're measuring the pure top-off water since they aren't well mixed. This is a fairly common problem, it's no big deal.

A much bigger problem is that your specialty malts are 56% of the grist! You generally want to keep it below 15%. Unfortunately a stout with 25% chocolate malt and 9% black malt sounds pretty awful to me. Maybe 12 ounces of each would be more appropriate...

 

[alphagolf]

I am brewing a stout with 2lbs flaked barley 7lbs pale malt 4lbs chocolate malt 1.5lbs caramel 60 1.5lbs black malt. Mashing in @ 155 with 3 gallons sparging with another 2. After collecting the wort I have about 4 gallons after the boil I have a little less than 3. I added water to get my 5 gallons but when I took the gravity reading it is only 1.000. What am I doing wrong?

Are you sure your OG of 1.000 is right? This means you extracted no sugars at all.

The first thing I notice is that you are mashing very thick. 3 gallons for 16 lb of grain is 0.75 qt/lb. I typically do 1.25 qt/lb which would be 5 gallons of strike water. Some will mash even higher at 1.5 qt/lb which would be 6 gallons. I think the thick mash could hurt your efficiency.

 

[TRitter449]

I let it sit for an hour at 155. I am alway worried about using too much strike water. Can that dilute my ferment able sugar amount? Also I will take the recipe adjustments into consideration. I just bought a bunch of grains to mix and see what happened. If I lower the specialty malts should I increase the pale malt?

Is there any way to tell if my hydrometer is not working correctly?

 

[Chadwick]

Wow. No conversion at all seems kind of impossible. I would start examining things immediately.
1) Check your hydrometer with pure water. In straight water it should read 1.000
2) Check the thermometer you used during the mash. It should read 212F in straight water that is starting to boil

Answering these questions will also be helpful for us to help you.
Where did you get your Pale Malt?
How old is it?
What is the crush like?
How has it been stored?
Did you stir your mash while you were mashing to get the heat distributed evenly?
How did your thermometer and hydrometer tests turn out?

 

[nukebrewer]

I let it sit for an hour at 155. I am alway worried about using too much strike water. Can that dilute my ferment able sugar amount? Also I will take the recipe adjustments into consideration. I just bought a bunch of grains to mix and see what happened. If I lower the specialty malts should I increase the pale malt?

Is there any way to tell if my hydrometer is not working correctly?

First, it is possible to use too much strike water, but that's when you get above about 2-2.5 qt per lb which you are well below.

Second, regardless of what your strike water volume is, what matters is your final volume. If you collect 7 gallons of wort, yes your fermentables will be diluted, but the boil will concentrate it to your desired OG, assuming you got full conversion in the mash and got a decent lauter efficiency.

 

[TRitter449]

I got all my malts from more beer.com pre milled they seem to be no less than 80%. They were all vacuum sealed. I also received an 8 gallon brew kettle for Christmas with built in thermometer and ball valve. Should I have done a temp test right from the start?

 

[TRitter449]

Sorry I also did stir my mash as I was adding it to the water. I am using a homemade mash tun from a 10 gallon water cooler from Home Depot.

 

[fartinmartin]

Taste it , if it's sweet , the SG won't be 1.000 !

 

[runkelia]

Did your runnings have any color?
Are you positive your grains were crushed?

 

[fartinmartin]

Hey, with all that grain, it could be 1.100 , do you normally wear specs ?

 

[Chadwick]

Grains from morebeer.com are certainly going to be fresh. So no problem with that. I'm not a fan of their crush, but I never order crushed grains anymore anyhow. Regardless, I feel that we are at least sure that the grains were viable at this stage.